Sheet Metal and Steel Sheet Prices: What You Need to Know

At St. Louis Pipe & Supply, we do more than just assemble industrial pipe and supply it to customers throughout the world. We also specialize in structural steel products like plate, bars, sheet and beams.

Today, we’ll focus on sheet. In addition to offering competitive steel sheet prices, we ship sheet orders to anywhere in the world. But first, let’s explore what sheet is.

Sheet Metal 101

Sheet metal, as its name indicates, is metal that has been formed into flat, thin shapes. It can be worked into a number of different shapes, making it very important in metalworking, and it’s used to make an array of different everyday objects.

Because it’s used to make so many different things, its properties can vary widely. It comes in both flat pieces and coiled strips, and it varies in thickness from thin foil to ‘plate’ thickness. Sheet metal thickness is most often measured in a unit called gauge. Ranging from 8 to 30, the higher the gauge of a sheet metal, the thinner it is.

Materials

Some of the metals that are most frequently used to make sheet metal are copper, steel, tin, nickel, aluminum, brass and titanium. Steel and aluminum are the most popular because of their resistance to corrosion. If you would like to see our competitive steel sheet prices, request a quote.

Applications

From cars to medical supplies, sheet metal has many uses. Some of the more interesting applications include complex machines and transformers, the bodies of airplanes and the plates in old suits of armor.

Forming

Perhaps the greatest benefit of sheet is its ability to be worked into so many shapes. Some of the ways sheet metal is shaped include:

Curling

Shaping the edge of a sheet into a hollow ring–like the first step in rolling a sheet of paper into a cylinder

Deep Drawing

Stretching the metal over a form

Perforating

Punching holes close together in a flat sheet

Roll forming

Bending the sheet into tubes or arch-like structures

Stamping

A blanket term for a number of different processes, including coining, punching and embossing. Machine driven, stamping forms shapes at a high rate of production

That’s just a basic introduction to sheet metals, one of the services we offer in addition to our industrial pipe and supply. What are your uses for steel sheets? Let us know in the comments.